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ZIPS rest-of-season projections have him to be about as valuable as Utley and Phillips going forward. And behind the best 4 MLB 2Bman, all of whom are in the AL. There ain't many very good NL 2B gyus at the moment.

And speaking of positions without a superstar, if you needed a SS for the rest of 2013 for your pennant contender (either league), who would you take (especially with Tulo out for a while)? There is no great answer. Some might even say Machado.

I'd be surprised if Kinsler or Zobrist end up with better numbers end-of-year than Carpenter. He may not maintain his .889 OPS, but I can see him keeping his OBP around .400 with a mid-.400s slugging, and boatloads of runs scored (on pace for 125). Plus he's playing very good defense.

My dad and I were just looking at this yesterday. It seems that Carpenter is absolutely the engine of the Cards' offense - 51 runs on 82 hits seems like an amazingly high ratio. And it's not that he has Brandon Phillips' magical RBIability batting behind him, either - since Matheny pulled Jay from the leadoff spot for good around the first week of April, the lineup's been:
Carpenter: 51 R, 82 H 31 BB, OPS 889
Beltran: 42 RBI 70 H OPS 858
Holliday: 38 RBI 62 H OPS 803
Craig: 49 RBI 79 H OPS 822
Molina (more or less): 32 RBI 83 H OPS 887
And then Freese and his 733 OPS.

Obviously I'm using blunt tools here, but is Carpenter a really good baserunner despite a seeming lack of speed (career 2/5 in SB attempts)?

Segura has been impressive. I did notice his odd distribution of XBHs. I think the last player to hit more 3b than 2b was Deion Sanders, but that wasn't a full season. Segura also has great SB/CS numbers.

the brewers manager has his flaws but one of his positives is that the guys hustle. so when segura hits one in the gap as he's headed toward second he's rarely coasting. he's always looking to get to third. same with gomez.

Now that Pete Kozma has kind of settled to a level not commensurate with the Kozma hate, I'm wondering if perhaps I should shift my intense dislike over to Carpenter... oh, who am I kidding... there's enough bile in my spleen to hate more than one Cardinal at a time.

If you want to be angry at the Cardinals, don't waste your energy on Kozma or Carpenter (both of whom are doing roughly what was expected of them). Be angry that despite injuries to Westbrook, Motte, C. Carpenter, and Garcia (and his initial replacement, Gast) they still have the second best pitching staff in the NL. With Westbrook back, they actually have 5 plausible candidates -- Wacha, Lyons, Martinez, Gast, Kelly -- to fill Garcia's slot (6 if you include Rosenthal). The depth is just preposterous.

I have no problem with Mike Matheny's comment, but he is of course wrong. 2 months of the season doesn't make him the best, it makes him the guy having the best two months of the season.(as post 1 pointed out)

jean segura's double, triple and homer totals: 7/8/10

i found that interesting

I love that. I love seeing high triple totals from a player. Talk about speed or whatever, but I'm pretty confident that players go out of the box thinking double and don't push the issue enough, way too many times have I seen a double that could have been a triple not happen.

There's no limit to hating Cardinals. This ####'s been going on for 15 years. Oh he's hurt, bring in John Rodriguez to OPS 850. Hey Skip Schumacker can go ahead and not be terrible for no apparent reason. Tony Womack actually decent leadoff hitter? Why the #### not!!